Hope the studies are going well. I just had a quick question about where you got your M/B from was this another eBay purchase? I had a quick look n mostly seem to be finding ones coming from America, n being in the UK don't really want to pay such high shipping and import tax if it can be helped.

I haven't been able to find anything from Europe sadly, but since I order quite a lot of stuff
on eBay I have by now gotten used to high shipping costs and import taxes

I couldn't seem to get the M/B in europe, found some processors but could get better for less from the US, is really odd the way that works. But have started ordering parts n should be getting a build log started shortly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by alpenwasser

Since I'm here anyway: There will be progress on this shortly, I have just a few more
items waiting to arrive and then I can finish this one.

Really looking forward to seeing these updates and how its coming along.

Yeah, it's taking a lot longer to finish this than I'd initially hoped (doesn't
it always with these sort of projects...). But I've been working on it in the last
few weeks and now finally have something to share.

PSU Fitting Issue

The PSU slides into this case through an opening from behind, and since the case
isn't really made for normal ATX-sized PSUs (but server PSUs instead, it's a
rather tight fit. To be more specific: The PSU in its stock config does not fit,
the screws for the fan grill and the fan grill itself bump up against the
case. An easy fix though, just needed to remove the fan grill on the PSU.

(click image for full res)

And voilà:

(click image for full res)

Furthermore, since normal server PSUs usually blow air through along their
longitudinal axis, there is no ventilation hole on the case for a fan on the top
of the PSU, which most of today's PSUs have. Not to worry, I still had an old
Aquacomputer rad grill laying around. A bit of dremeling should be able to fix
this problem. Marking for cutting:

(click image for full res)

And with the grill mounted:(click image for full res)

Bracket Collision

Another issue with mounting a PSU in the case that wasn't intended to be mounted
in this case: The bracket for the PSU does not quite line up correctly with the
power inlet.(click image for full res)

The power plug can still be connected, but the PSU sits crooked in the case and
it's a huge pain to mount like this.

(click image for full res)

Again, a little bit of cutting was required:

(click image for full res)

To give you an idea of how the PSU fits into the case:(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

Needed to hook up some HDDs to test the LSI controller. Looks very ghetto, worked
like a charm.

finally an update, you have been abstinent for a while.
the fan grill looks very nice, but i am not too sure about the PSU bracket. it looks a bit ghetto.
does this mean helios will finally have an update again? it's a shame that the build will probably be outdated before it is finished, it would drive me mad to have a Titan lying around for over a year.

finally an update, you have been abstinent for a while.
the fan grill looks very nice, but i am not too sure about the PSU bracket. it looks a bit ghetto.
does this mean helios will finally have an update again? it's a shame that the build will probably be outdated before it is finished, it would drive me mad to have a Titan lying around for over a year.

Yeah, the PSU bracket comes stock with the case, and due to geometric
restrictions there isn't really much I can do to change it. It gets the job
done at least, that's my primary concern with anything that goes into this
rig.

HELIOS will still have to wait a bit, I needed to invest more money into this
rig than I originally planned (as is usual I suppose ), which means it'll
take me even longer to save up for the final stages of HELIOS.

It is however up and running in a temporary ghetto-setup at the moment
so that I can at least make use of its components.

PS: Yes, there's definitely enough radiator power in there, currently running
the two CPUs and the GPU on one 560, easy-peasy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mehere

now thats a tight fit
look right though
just one comment can you change the yellow tape to red to match the sata cables

As mentioned elsewhere, one of the two main problem of our current server is
that it only has seven HDD slots, and they're already all filled up. The only
way to get more storage is to install larger disks, which isn't really all that
optimal.

One of the main points of this build was to have more disk slots. The PP689 only
offers four in its stock form, which you can upgrade to a maximum of thirteen
drives. You would need to buy another four-disk enclosure (which btw. I could
not find anywhere to buy), and a five-disk enclosure for the 5.25" bays. Since
13 drives aren't really that many, and since these enclosures aren't exactly
cheap, I decided to go another route.

It took me a while to figure out how to do it, but in the end this is what I
came up with. I had very generous help from one of my neighbours, who has a mill
and a lathe at his disposal, as well as plenty of time (he's a pensioneer ).

So off we went:

The Mill

(click image for full res)

First Steps

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(click image for full res)

The Mill can also serve as a drill press. The drill chuck he looks ridiculously
huge when you put a small drill bit into it (he said they didn't have the
smaller model in stock when he needed to buy his, so he went with the large
one).

(click image for full res)

Stumbled upon this when going through my pics. My dog's girlfriend, basically
(she's a labrador and belongs to another one of our neighbours). I was
dogsitting here for an evening a few weeks back. She can be a bit hyperactive at
times, but is a very lovely dog.

(click image for full res)

Drilling and Milling

Lots of holes needed to be drilled for the pop rivets that were going to hold it
all together.

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

Milling out the slots for the screwheads:

(click image for full res)

Phase I Complete

The side panels of the disk racks completed. Testing with some broken old HDDs
I had laying around to make sure it all fits as it should. It does.

(click image for full res)

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Rail Detail

This is how the construct looks on the side where you slide in the disks. You
can see the pop rives I used to assemble it, the slots which are pictured being
milled above for the screwheads and the screws on the disks. You can also see
the recesses into which the screws mounted on the HDDs lock. The system works
very well.

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

Ventilation

Obviously, 24 HDDs are going to put out some heat, so some ventilation is
required. I'm using six Papst fans for that. The fans will be bolted onto the
panels with some L profiles. Unfortunately, 120 mm fans have 105 mm hole
distance, and HDDs are ~100 mm wide, so it's not possible to mount the fan on
both sides, only two screws can be used. It's not really a problem though, two
screws tightened down nicely give sufficient stability.

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

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(click image for full res)

Mounting Brackets

The panels are mounted to the bottom and top of the case with screws. To have
some leeway in adjusting things, there are slots instead of round holes in some
places.

(click image for full res)

Top:

(click image for full res)

Bottom:

(click image for full res)

Fan Mounting

Since the fan screws need to be tightened rather heavily, the screws exert quite
a bit of pressure on the fan frames. To prevent the fan frames from being
crushed and/or breaking, we made some brass bushings that take the brunt of the
pressure.

(click image for full res)

And Mounted

And finally the disk racks are mounted inside the case.

(click image for full res)

(click image for full res)

Disk Mounting

The Disks just slide into the slots and lock into place in the recesses you can
see above. Since I can't tighten the screws, I'm using Loctite to prevent them
from falling out due to vibration. I tried to get some screws similar to those
Lian Li use for their HDD mounting, but the only ones I could find were so
expensive that they'd have cost me more than 100 USD. So yeah, nope...

(click image for full res)

There's still lots to do, but that was by far the most work intensive part of
this build, took us quite a while to get it done. And no, it won't be painted or
anything, the server will stand in a closed room in our appartment anyway. I'd
have loved to make it all pretty and nice, but at the moment I just don't have
the time.

Wow, great job on those disk racks!! Great work! Are you doing custom power/SATA cabling on the hard drives?

Thanks, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Well, custom cabling is a bit of an overstatement. The PSU comes with two
cables that are long enough to serve one disk tower each, so I'll just be running
those down each disk stack and put more SATA connectors on them. It'll
be nice and tidy.

The SATA cables I'll leave as they are, I'll just try to get them as tidy as I can,
but I won't be sleeving them since it doesn't really make sense to spend the
money and time on it in this build.

Yummy, perfect SATA spacing, for once. I never understood why power supply manufactures always left so much bloody space between SATA connectors! HDD cages have been pretty much standard for spacing since the dawn of time.